It's fashionable for those on the left and the right, and for those with special economic interests, to cast aspersions upon certain foreign aid programs in which Panama is the intended beneficiary. There are in fact aid programs that ought to be looked at with a wary eye, because they either come with strings attached or are inherently designed to promote policies that are or ought to be controversial. However, there are also frequent knee-jerk adverse responses that can be downright irrational. Even when some groups or individuals may have their reasons, their objections may still not be in Panama's best interests.

The United States has a treaty commitment to defend the Panama Canal, which a large minority of Panamanians dislikes but is nevertheless part of this country's foreign policy. Most Panamanians liked American soldiers when they were stationed here, but others saw them as something akin to occupation troops and a source of national humiliation. There was a treaty commitment about that, too, and the US bases were dismantled.

Now we get US National Guard and reserve units coming down here every couple of years to do construction and health care maneuvers. Although Panamanian individuals and communities do benefit, we should understand that these are military exercises designed to advance the aims of the United States rather than mere charity or propaganda missions. To be a viable military power the US Armed Forces need capable engineering units, and thanks to pressures from US construction companies and unions the military is not allowed to build roads, bridges, schools or clinics in the United States. Those works are reserved for the private sector, for political and economic reasons. That's why the guard and reserve engineers come down here to practice. Similarly, if there is the possibility of American troops being deployed to tropical lands, it's important to have military medical units with some experience with tropical diseases. You don't want to send troops into the jungle who are served by doctors who have never seen malaria or dengue.

Now if you believe that the US military is primarily an instrument of imperialist meddling in little countries' affairs, then it's not a far stretch to see construction and medical exercises as an act of aggression. If you are SUNTRACS, you need not resort to communist ideology to come to the same conclusion about American troops building things in Panama that US construction unions reached about such projects in the USA.

But Panama does benefit from these maneuvers. Moreover, when Bocas town's reservoir recently ran dry, the community was saved from a far more severe disaster when the American troops lent the use of a portable desalinization plant to provide drinking water.

Regardless of political creed, and without anybody having to abandon any sincerely held opinion about the nature of US policies or institutions, Panamanians ought to be grateful for this help that US Armed Forces have given to Bocas.

We are simultaneously seeing the mirror image of this phenomenon with respect to Cuban eye surgeons. The National Medical Association and various individuals from the right wing of the political spectrum are complaining about Cuban doctors coming here, and before that complained when the government sent Panamanians to Cuba, for operations that restored the patients' vision.

Yes, Panama has doctors who can do this work, but no, it's not covered by our public health care system and the cost is out of the reach of most Panamanians. If this country's doctors protest that 'we could do this work,' the blind and their friends and families can legitimately counter that 'in fact you were not doing it.'

There are plenty of things to criticize about Cuba. It does, however, have an amazingly good medical system for a country on a sugar cane economy and its medical schools turn out more well trained physicians than the island can use just for itself. Thus the export of medical services and the attraction of health care tourists have long been features of the Cuban economy.

Allegations about the inferiority of Cuban medicine that we have seen published in recent days in Panama's mainstream corporate dailies have little factual basis and are either protectionism by local doctors, exercises in right-wing ideology or both. The complaints that Cuban doctors are violating our laws by performing surgery here and endangering the health of Panamanians by doing so may or may not be technically accurate as to the first part but are patently ridiculous as to the second. There are too many Panamanians who can see again for the critics' denigration of Cuban medical standards to be taken seriously.

Regardless of political creed, and without abandoning any principled critiques of Cuba about other matters, Panamanians should be grateful for the helping hand it has lent to our blind citizens.

Profiles in cowardice

The former US Air Force intelligence operative and all around snake oil man Donald K. Winner, his claims to dominate Panama's English-language Internet scene ever more clearly bogus, has sunk to a desperate new low.

Winner showed up at the home of Dutch journalist and noriegaville.com publisher Okke Ornstein, armed with a taser, a can of pepper spray and a camera. Winner then proceeded to take pictures of the house and Ornstein's two young daughters. He mocked Mrs. Ornstein and her distress. When Okke got there Winner fled and led a car chase through Arraijan.

They both ended up before the corregidor, who fined Winner for intruding into the Ornstein family's privacy and Ornstein for failing to carry his cedula with him. Ornstein says he'll pursue further legal proceedings against Winner. Winner boasted on his website about how the corregidor eventually returned his taser.

Stalking little girls with a taser and pepper spray --- really brave, Don.

Winner's actions have been widely rejected in the community. The advertisers on his website ought to know that their sponsorship is now likely to be seen as support for the intimidation of the families of journalists whom Winner and his friends oppose, and that's not a very good image for a business to have.

Bear in mind…

The best way to escape from a problem is to solve it.

Alan Saporta

Governments, after all, do not last forever --- even those so frightened of the truth that they get rid of anyone who speaks it.

Monica Whitlock

The way I see it, if you want the rainbow, you got to put up with the rain.

Dolly Parton